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UNDERSTANDING “PARADISE” vis-a-vis THE CHURCH OF CHRIS MARTIN

From WikiColdplay: “Coldplay once again aims for a stadium-sized sound and achieves it on ‘Paradise,’ the second single from their latest album ‘Mylo Xyloto.’ While many of Coldplay’s best songs are built around the voice of singer Chris Martin, ‘Paradise’ makes a lasting impression before Martin offers a single word. The minute-long introduction builds with strings and keyboards before a slow, hypnotic beat enters the picture. Martin sings a third-person narrative about a girl whose life hasn’t measured up to her expectations. What the Church of Chris Martin wants to examine in greater detail: just who is “this girl?”

“When she was just a girl / She expected the world / But it flew away from her reach / So she ran away in her sleep.” Martin references the band’s last single with the lines, “Life goes on, it gets so heavy / The wheel breaks the butterfly / Every tear, a waterfall / In the night, the stormy night / She closed her eyes,” before launching into an epic sing-along chorus, “She dreams of para, para, paradise.” After a guitar solo, the song fades out with soft humming and a brief piano section, a nicely understated ending to a captivating song.”

In fact, “Paradise” is the most successful single for the band after the mega-hit, “Viva la Vida,” and was met with a generally positive reception from music critics. On January 1, 2012–after 10 weeks on the singles charts– it was confirmed as #1 following consistent sales leading up to the Christmas period. Is it any wonder that a Chris(t) Martin song would do well during the period when the world pays spiritual homage to Christ?

“Paradise” cover art prominently features an abstract crayon piece that enmeshes differing (heavenly) shades of blue. There is the butterfly and an Archimedean spiral–both of which are recurring themes in Coldplay concerts, wardrobe embellishments and on the official Coldplay.com website. We shall delve into Church teachings on the symbolism of the Archimedean spiral within the oeuvre of the Martinite musical creation in a separate post. For now, know that this spiral representation is Coldplay’s attempt to link the archetypical symbol found in the art and metaphysics of every age of man to the meaning of their own music. I submit, one must strive hard to see beyond the mere superficial beauty of the album art, awesome “Paradise” song, and heavenly blue eyes of Chris Martin, to perceive an even deeper and complex meaning to what the song is attempting to say. Not meaning to brush heavy thought off, but that bountiful harvest of lyrical thought and ecumenical meaning to “Paradise” must await another Liturgical teaching event to come.

Suffice to say that “Paradise” has certainly done well for the band and MZ sales. It was prominently featured on the Brit X Factors finale, and then really began to regain sales momentum in the UK and skyrocketed up the singles charts. Only Coldplay’s massively popular 2008 number-one hit “Viva La Vida” managed to go higher on the charts. “Paradise” eventually made it to #1 in the UK, and became a top 10 hit in many countries in Europe. It reached number-one in Norway. Here in the good ole USA, the song reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

When “Paradise” is broken down and looked at for ulterior meanings, similes, hidden metaphors, and strategically-placed lyrical prophecy, I believe one could say that Coldplay has moved forward in it’s march towards becoming the blessed band that will uniformly proclaim the prophecy of the coming Female Messiah. “Paradise” is another important piece of the band’s Revelations jigsaw puzzle built around a musical and ecumenically artistic subject matter that demands greater decifering for the religious themes creatively and strategically imbedded within. More on that to follow on that subject. Amen.